Toronto Maple Leafs Force 7th Game With Gutsy Effort and Near Shut-Out
The Toronto Maple Leafs played an extrenly gutsy game Thursday night as they beat the Boston Bruins to force a game seven.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were without Auston Matthews for the second straight game, but they came out flying and played one of their best periods ever, then William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll (pretty much) shut out the Bruins.
The Air Canada centre was rocking and the oft-criticized Leafs fans in attendance helped will the team to victory.
Game seven will be on Saturday, but the Leafs have all the momentum,
Toronto Maple Leafs Force 7th Game With Gutsy Effort and Near Shut-Out
The Leafs didn't have Auston Matthews, they still didn't score a power-play goal (they are now 1-20 in the series), they still failed to scored more than two goals, and yet somehow they pulled out a victory.
It wasn't exactly the best game of hockey to watch, but the Leafs played largely mistake free hockey and kept the Bruins from doing anything for the first 30 minutes. After that Boston rebounded and were the better team, but Joseph Woll was fantastic and it didn't matter.
They shutdown Marchand and Pastrnak for the second straight game and got the kind of insano goaltending that Leafs fans are used to seeing from the opposition only.
After scoring the game winning goal in game five, Matthew Knies was great again tonight, and William Nylander was the Leafs best player and scored twice.
It wasn't the kind of game you'd expect the Leafs to win, or even be capable of playing, but they pulled it off.
The Leafs weren't as good in the second and third as they were in the first, and since they didn't score when they were dominating, they had to rely on Joseph Woll to steal the game. It was the best goaltending performance the Leafs have seen in the playoffs in at least a decade, probably 20 years.
Woll was robbed of a shut-out when the Bruins scored at literally the latest possible moment and the Leafs were already more or less celebrating their victory. Somewhere out there is a guy who lost thousands of dollars on that goal and I hope he's a Leafs fan and is comforted by the victory.
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Now the Leafs head to Boston for game seven where they have nothing to lose, all the momentum and could maybe even get Auston Matthews back.